A Tale of Caution
by The Muses of Mars
Summary: The gods have a warning for an elven mage whose dabblings in the dark arts and with the Dark Brotherhood have turned her away from the Divines and onto a path of self-destruction.


It is late, but I just woke from the most horrid dream. It will not stop replaying itself in my mind, and I feel the only way to end the nightmare is to put it to parchment and have it out of my head!

In my dream, I was with Vorstag at Riften. We were standing on the pier, talking to someone. I did not know the man...but in my dream, I needed a favor from him, and he was not cooperating. He would hear nothing I said and rudely cast me aside. And then... Oh, gods! It was horrible. I'd gone there with no intention of harming anyone, but then when he refused to aid me, I felt this intense rage welling up inside of me.

My anger was uncontrollable. I forgot everything—the favor, why I needed it, and even my husband beside me. My body started to burn as if on fire—and then I _was_ on fire! Only it didn't burn—at least, it didn't burn _me_. But the pier—the man—the storehouse at the dock... Everything was ablaze. It was as though I had cast a flame spell, only I had not. The fire had simply boiled within me and then burst forth, and I could not stop it!

I jumped from the pier and into the river—not because I was afraid of what I'd done, or of the pillars of smoke that now engulfed the wharf, but because the exchange had not gone as I had planned. I was annoyed to have failed, and bothered that I might be arrested for my unsummoned spell.

Vorstag leapt from the pier after me. We smiled and chatted madly about the store back home, and I asked him how our stocks were doing. He told me proudly that we'd made a cozy little profit, and handed me a coin purse.

Just then we were reminded of our grave situation, when the Riften guards began firing arrows at us from the dock.

As I turned and swam away from the city, the only thought in my foolish head was that now I could never return. Arrows shot past me into the water, but by the time I'd crossed the river and reached the shore, the guards' shouts were too distant to be heard.

I felt at last the sand beneath my feet, and we were as good as free. Or so I thought.

When the water barely touched my hips and I could stand again, I began looking around for Vorstag. Surprisingly, I couldn't see him anywhere. I lifted my chin and peered back toward the city, but it seemed the guards were more intent now on putting out the massive fire devouring their wharf than in chasing down the arson that had started it.

Seeing no sign of my husband in pursuit, I called his name. Again and again I shouted. He never answered me.

At last I saw movement in the river, quickly realizing it was Vorstag's blond head breaking the surface of the water. But he wasn't coming up very fast, and after a moment I saw him turn to the side, rising from the rippling waves with his face turned away and his eyes closed.

I knew immediately that he was hurt. There was no reason for him to ignore my calls or to flounder in the water when the city guards could be upon us at any moment.

I pleaded with him to hold on until I could heal his wounds with my restoration magic. My heart racing and breaths coming in ragged gasps, I dragged my husband from the river to the pebbled bank. His body was heavy in my arms, just as my skirts were heavy with riverwater, hanging damply against my legs and slowing my steps. Kneeling at last in the mud, I examined his wounds and found they were from no arrows; rather, his clothes were scorched away and his flesh was burnt...as though from fire.

"No, no, no..." I moaned. It was my fault. I had done this.

I did not even bother with restoration. It was far too late; my husband was dead. But I couldn't let him go like that, not as a criminal in a city so far from our home, not at my hands. Instead I used the art of conjuration—necromancy, the forbidden art I never would have even conceived of using back in Cyrodill... Gods curse me for even thinking of it. Instead of burning my husband's body to ash upon the rocks and taking his dust home to Markarth for the proper rites, I attempted to raise him from the dead.

But I am untrained in conjuration, and the spell failed. It was a blessing in reality, but in my dream, in that state of horrible pain, grief, and guilt, I was devastated. I tried again and again, screaming his name, but Vorstag did not rise.

Oh, wicked creature that I am! I know 'twas but a dream, that my husband surely sleeps safely and soundly back home in our bed, his chest rising and falling naturally with mortal breath. But that I have done dark deeds in the night I cannot deny, and the knowledge that inside me is the morbidity and the audacity to conceive of such an abominable horror terrifies me!

No! No more of these thoughts. I will burn this parchment and consider it fair counsel. This dream was surely a warning from the gods to turn from this evil path down which I have begun, or else I doom all that I hold dear!


End file.
